Practice Management
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in New York are the latest insurers to require that urgent care centers become accredited before contracting, or as a requirement to maintain in-network status. As noted in a recent posting by Becker’s Hospital Review, such policies highlight growing demand for healthcare providers in all settings to demonstrate both value and quality care—both of which have long been touted as attributes of well-run …
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The next decade will see national health expenditures grow 5.6% annually, according to projections from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), ensuring that the need for cost-effective, high-quality care will continue to grow as well. If CMS’s Office of the Actuary is correct in its estimate, the jump in healthcare spending will outpace projected growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 1.2%. The portion of the GDP consumed by healthcare spending is …
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Guests at Hawai‘i’s Royal Kona Resort don’t have to go too far or enlist Google to find a doctor if they get a toxic dose of the sun or need a jellyfish sting looked at. The hotel offers guests the convenience of seeing a physician from DOCNow Virtual Healthcare Centers right in their own room (or the lobby or even the poolside bar) every day of the year, from 8 am to 9 pm. It …
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A South Carolina hospital group is the latest institution to try to cash in on urgent care’s growing appeal, by franchising four urgent care facilities in the upstate region. Bon Secours St. Francis will brand its “new” properties Bon Secours Express Care, in concert with the one urgent care location it has in Greenville, SC. A new article published in the GSA Business Report, an online journal covering various industries in South Carolina, cites data …
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Coming off its highest calendar-year incidence in a decade, mumps struck 495 people in the U.S. in the first 28 days of 2017 alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The cases are spread across the entire breadth of the country, from Washington to Pennsylvania, pointing to a need for vigilance and preparedness in urgent centers in every region. First, clinics must be ready to assess patients and confirm or dismiss a …
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Urgent care operators who offer occupational medicine services have gotten very adept at making their case for blue collar worksites, as well as corporate offices. Now public schools are catching on to its benefits—as in the Appleton WI area, where employee health clinics are saving districts big money while providing efficient care when and where it’s needed most. The Kimberly, Appleton, and Neenah public schools are among the districts that have opened clinics run by …
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The most successful urgent care centers, by definition, have found a way to set themselves apart from their competitors. Besides offering excellent care, many make the effort to find a niche that demonstrates a sound understanding of what patients in their area seek in an urgent care provider. Direct Urgent Care in San Francisco has done just that by starting to offer HIV prevention services, while Dignity Health-GoHealth Urgent Care is considering doing to the …
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Membership-based payment models might offer the best of both worlds for urgent care operators and patients. The way Valley Immediate Care in southern Oregon structured its version, patients paying a small monthly fee get discounts—50%—on most services needed at the time of a visit. My Urgent Care 365 has enticed new patients to visit the clinic, helping to increase revenue in the process. Valley Immediate Care CEO Brent Kell will share some insights into how …
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The dangers of copy-and-paste functionality in electronic health records outweigh the benefits of convenience, according to a new report by the National Institutes of Standards and Technology in conjunction with ECRI and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command. Interviews with physicians and nurses using the military’s AHLTA EHR uncovered a “high potential risk of entering wrong information in the wrong chart” when copying-and-pasting. One common error cited in the report: Clinicians forget to …
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The mainstream media love to remind the public (ie, your prospective patients) that flu season is still in full swing. That being the case, why shouldn’t one of your physicians be the talking head assuring patients that all will be well if they do the right thing? When WJRT in Flint, MI did its most recent report on school districts’ efforts to fight influenza, Peter Stoyanoff, MD was there on screen, talking about what he …
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